House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith (D-WA) says he is trying to position the fiscal year 2020 defense authorization bill to engage not only Republicans in the Senate, where the GOP has a majority ready to fight for higher spending and resist restrictions on nuclear weapons, but also members of his own caucus in the House, where Democratic leaders have increasingly been at odds with the party's progressive wing.
Defense Budget Alert
June 10, 2019 |
Daily News
House authorizers are backing several items on the Navy's unfunded priority list, including more than $800 million in backlogged submarine and surface ship maintenance, according to the House Armed Services Committee's "chairman's mark" of the fiscal year 2020 defense policy bill.
June 08, 2019 |
Daily News
House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith (D-WA) has set a $733 billion topline for total defense spending in his mark of the fiscal year 2020 defense authorization bill, blocking all Pentagon funding for President Trump’s border wall and putting the panel at odds with the Senate Armed Services Committee, which has approved $750 billion, according to a copy of the "chairman's mark" obtained by Inside Defense.
June 05, 2019 |
Daily News
Lawmakers on the House Armed Services Committee, acting on concerns the Defense Department is investing too little in science and technology, have drafted legislation that would mandate accountability should the S&T portfolio be cut in the future.
June 05, 2019 |
Daily News
House lawmakers plan to authorize a new maritime program that would secure 10 U.S.-flagged, civilian-operated petroleum tankers in case of wartime, according to committee staff.
June 05, 2019 |
Daily News
The House Armed Services seapower and projection forces subcommittee is aiming to repeal the cost caps currently in place on the Navy's new Ford-class aircraft carriers, arguing the caps have not successfully maintained cost.
June 05, 2019 |
Daily News
Acting Deputy Defense Secretary David Norquist said today he is optimistic about the chances for Congress to eventually reach a bipartisan budget agreement, but only because the alternative is unthinkable.
June 05, 2019 |
Daily News
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford said today the Pentagon should be cautious about increasing the size of the military at the expense of investments in new technologies critical to maintaining longstanding advantages over China and Russia.
May 28, 2019 |
Daily News
Despite the Navy's efforts to convince lawmakers to make major investments in unmanned technology, House appropriators are proposing funding cuts for several high-profile programs in their fiscal year 2020 defense spending bill.
May 23, 2019 |
Daily News
The Senate Appropriations Committee today proposed legislation that would allocate nearly $1.7 billion in emergency supplemental funding to support recovery efforts at Tyndall Air Force Base, FL, and Offutt AFB, NE.
May 23, 2019 |
Daily News
The GOP-led Senate Armed Services Committee, as expected, has approved $750 billion in total defense spending for fiscal year 2020, according to a summary of the panel’s authorization bill.
May 21, 2019 |
Daily News
The absence of a broad budget deal in Congress is being highlighted by the release of a White House letter opposing the defense spending bill crafted by House Democrats.
May 20, 2019 |
Daily News
The House Appropriations Committee is poised to pass a fiscal year 2020 defense spending bill Tuesday that would rescind more than $3 billion from major weapon system programs.
May 20, 2019 |
Daily News
This week, for the first time in 10 years, the Senate Armed Services Committee will be marking up its version of the defense authorization bill ahead of its House counterpart, a timing shakeup that has distinct pros and cons for lawmakers, according to former congressional staffers.
May 17, 2019 |
Daily News
House appropriators are seeking to move $653 million from the Navy’s Virginia-class submarine program to its operations and maintenance account to force the service to address its submarine backlog at several shipyards.
May 15, 2019 |
Daily News
The Defense Department is laying the groundwork for a fiscal year 2021 budget request that would prop up its base budget by plowing $65 billion previously forecast as war spending into routine appropriation accounts, including nearly $20 billion for weapons investment, repeating a central strategy of the Trump administration's FY-20 budget request.
May 14, 2019 |
Daily News
The Democrat-led House Appropriations defense subcommittee, still smarting from the Pentagon's recent unilateral budget transfers to build barriers on the U.S.-Mexico border, has drafted a bill that would reduce and restrict the Pentagon’s future ability to reprogram funds.
May 01, 2019 |
Daily News
Congressional committees are preparing to consider defense spending and authorization bills this month, but lawmakers have yet to reach a bipartisan budget deal to avert sequestration.
April 30, 2019 |
Daily News
In the absence of supplemental funding from Congress, the Air Force will uphold its planned halt on all new rebuilding efforts at Tyndall Air Force Base, FL, which was destroyed in a category 5 hurricane in October.
April 30, 2019 |
Daily News
The new National Defense Strategy calls for “urgent change at a significant scale” to reposition the U.S. military for global competitions with China and Russia, but the Defense Department lacks a sound strategic analysis process to drive the tough budget decisions likely required for major transformation, according to the Government Accountability Office and former Pentagon officials who spent years crafting national security policy.